


Here There Be Dragons

by RobinLorin



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Emily Does A Murder, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 16:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinLorin/pseuds/RobinLorin
Summary: Emily decides, through logic and sensible thinking, to kill Rankin.





	Here There Be Dragons

Emily was a sensible girl. 

Emily took after her mother in this character; and Admiral Roland had more than once expressed her relief at this score. Emily was likewise glad of this trait. It would be terrible to be weighted by such foolish notions as honor, which seemed to hamper Captain Laurence in all his endeavors. It'd got him in real trouble when he brought the dragon antidote over to France. It had landed them here in New Wales, after all. 

Emily wished he would have trusted her with the task, or at least word of his journey; she wouldn't have hesitated to bring the case of mushrooms over the channel, and to Hell with her chances with Excidium. But Emily understood Captain Laurence, perhaps better than anyone on his crew (except for Granby, and he was not technically on Temeraire's crew anymore, for all that he stuck around often enough to warrant it), and she understood his reasoning. The captain would never jeopardize her livelihood when he could take the fall himself. 

On the morning the news broke, when Emily had finally comprehended what had been done (what had been lost, and so much saved), she had vowed to repay Captain Laurence for that kindness he had done her, harsh though it had been. 

And so, although this moment stood months before the germination of her plan, and Emily herself did not even know it yet, thus began the plan to distract the captain and push Rankin to his doom.

Demane didn’t like her idea. 

"It's about morality," he said, frowning. 

Emily made a rude noise that conveyed what she thought about morality. 

"Well, it's alright if you kill a man in battle," said Demane. "That's different." 

"No, it's not," Emily scoffed. 

"It's faster, in battle. And it's not murder when it's war." 

"Of course it is," said Emily, disdainful. "It's killing another human. I don't see why one kind of killing should be alright and another immoral." 

Demane was silent for a while, thinking of another argument. Emily could tell she’d won when he suggested, "Granby would know." 

"Don't you go telling him," Emily snapped. "He'll tell Captain Laurence, and then the whole thing will be done in." 

"Captain Laurence is a good man," Demane said stoutly. 

"Of course he is," said Emily. "He's also moral. And that's just what we don't need. Rankin certainly won't wait for Captain Laurence to step up to him. He'll just go about using his rank to order us all about and snatch any egg for himself. It's the same as offing a boarder - we've got to get rid of threats to the captain before they ever get close to him." 

Demane furrowed his brow. ”I don't think I should like Rankin, from all you've said about him. But Captain Laurence wouldn't kill a man in cold blood, and so won't I." 

He came back several nights later, on the eve of the day that Rankin arrived. "I understand now," he said grimly, under the sounds of Temeraire scratching the ground in agitation. The rest of the crew was too intent of trying to hear Captains Laurence and Granby speaking in low tones to pay attention to two ensigns. 

Demane looked at Emily in nervous determination. "We must get rid of him." 

“Good," said Emily. "I was going to do it, of course, but it will be easier with you helping." 

Emily was all for bludgeoning or stabbing, just to be sure it worked and Rankin was truly dead; but there was the issue of the resulting blood and her scant change of clothes. Demane suggested persuading one of the dragons to swallow Rankin whole, but Emily protested the effect of Rankin's buckles and leathers on their stomachs. "Besides," she added, "dragons are ever telling everyone about every little secret, and the captains should know by the of the week." 

Demane suggested poison, but Emily disdained using such a womanly weapon. 

Emily had killed her first man at age twelve. It had been a nasty scene, and Emily had woken every night for a fortnight afterward, feeling the victim's weight dragging her harness down and off of Temeraire's back. She'd been furious with her dreaming mind for making her afraid of her duty. She knew what her mother told her when she came to comfort Emily: it was not her fault. He was an enemy, and had he succeeded, Emily would be dead and Temeraire would be claimed by the French. Any hesitation on Emily's part in name of pity or cowardice would have done harm to herself, and to England, and to her crew. Emily already understood this; and by and by, her body knew this too, and stopped trying to startle her in the middle of the night. 

Emily was as sensible as anyone she knew - her mother her main model - and she was a girl; no matter how that shocked some people, the captain included. She was a girl just was she was brown-haired, or an aviator, or an ensign: it was just who she was. No more, no less, and no matter to anyone who thought it should be otherwise. 

Emily was not the kind of sensible girl that older men called “sensible,” in that patronizing tone which really meant "a girl who bends to the pressures of society when given an option to be more exciting.” Emily would call that kind of girl rather dull. She had found that for some reason, when many people included 'girl' in a compliment, they meant to add a veneer of condescension. 

Emily was sensible enough that she didn't see the difference between pushing a boarder off in the midst of a fight and pushing Rankin off a conveniently-placed cliff. 

Their method was set upon by the fortuitous reading aloud of a letter from Emily’s mother while the ensigns were loitering near Captain Laurence’s tent. Emily felt it only right that her mother should be the one to suggest the cliff-dropping option. 

"The issue is finding a way to do it without the others finding out,” Emily mused. She felt that, as a future captain, she should use this exercise to strengthen her plotting abilities. “I think we’d better tell him that you’ve died in the bush, and Kulingile is stranded out there without a captain.” 

She thought this was an excellent plan, but Demane refused to go along, even though Emily tried to explain that he wouldn’t really have to die. “I’m not letting him even  _ think _ he can take Kulingile,” Demane said stubbornly, and would not be swayed. So Emily had to rethink the plan. 

“Maybe we tell him there is a dragon egg in the desert,” Demane suggested. “Not Kulingile. Just an unclaimed egg.” 

“A dragon nest in the middle of nowhere?” Emily said skeptically. The idea had some merit, but further conversation was stopped as Granby suddenly cornered them where they were burnishing Temeraire’s harness. 

"What are you two villains up to?” he demanded.

"Us, sir?" Emily asked. 

"That wide-eyed act won't fool me, Roland." 

“Nothing, sir,” she said stubbornly. She resisted looking at Demane; he had a telling face, but there was no opportunity to scold him on it without Granby seeing. 

In the end Granby went away, not without some vague and warning remarks. “What can he do to us, though?” Demane pointed out privately. “We have already taken transport.” 

“That’s the spirit,” Emily said bracingly. 

It was not too hard to lure Rankin away. Emily only had to dirty up her face and run panting into the officer's’ tent, ostensibly looking for Captain Laurence and exclaiming over the nest of dragons she had found. Rankin pretended he was quite put out of his way to accompany her to the nest, “to secure the find for English men,” but Emily noticed he ensured that no other aviator saw them leave. 

Demane was waiting for them at the edge of the bush. 

“Why are you here?” Rankin demanded sourly. “Is this my new crew?” 

“He found the eggs with me,” Emily said quickly. “Besides, he’s a captain already.”

"Completely backwards country," Rankin groused, trudging over the dry brush. "I shouldn't think such uncultured ruffians have a place in the corps proper, much less as a captain. Or girls who don't dress the way they ought, and take to violence when a gentleman offers them a kind word." 

Emily was still fuming over the affront from the recently arrived soldier, and couldn't help saying, "If he's a gentleman, I'm a dragon." 

"That Kalazik has poorer manners than you, but only barely. You could have been born of the same father. Though I'm sure  _ you _ wouldn't know." 

Emily knew most people took offense at being called a bastard. Emily was more sensible - what was a father to her? - but Demane apparently felt the same as those people. He nearly jumped on Rankin, and Emily had to pull him back by his collar. 

Rankin let Demane lead the way after that, to make sure he wouldn’t leap at Rankin, but Emily didn’t miss the gleam of avarice in Rankin’s eye. The promise of an eventual dragon was well enough, but Rankin would be pleased with himself if he could see Demane stripped of his office, and snatch Kulingile from Demane directly. 

Rankin continued to be quite a nuisance, looking at the sun and wondering aloud how much further they must walk, and threatening to have them punished if they were lying to him. Emily was waiting for an opportunity to strike, and she cursed New Wales for being on the whole dangerous and yet proving unsatisfactory in the one moment that Emily wanted it to prove deadly. At long last she spied an embankment -- not a cliff by any means, but tall enough to enable a fatal fall. As they came closer, Rankin exclaimed: there was a small oasis at the bottom of the not-cliff. 

"This is an exercise in folly," Rankin snapped, and flung himself down beside the watering hole. Demane and Emily lingered by, hoping that Rankin would follow them. Emily opened her mouth and was only saying Rankin's name when something shot out of the bushes, and Rankin was gone. 

Demane was gazing at the sky to gauge the position of the sun, and Emily did not wait for him to look around; only grabbed the nearest part of him as she bolted for the rocky crag that only moments before had supposed Rankin’s doom. Demane freed his shoulder sleeve from her grip and outpaced her. He reached the top and spun around, grasping at his hip for a pistol that was left behind at the camp, looking wildly for the danger. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

Emily reached the top as well and looked down at the oasis. The landscape was still and quiet. 

“Where’s Rankin?” Demane asked. 

Emily pointed. Below, just barely visible, there was a stripe of disturbed sand among other sand. It was wide as a man. It led into the bushes. Even as they watched, the wind or their own eyes hid the track among the shifting sand, and all traces of Rankin disappeared. 

Emily scanned the oasis below for long minutes. When nothing appeared and their breathing had leveled out, she looked at Demane. He looked equally as bewildered as she was. 

“Well,” Emily said eventually. “I suppose, if he doesn’t show up by morning, we can call it a job well done?” 

Rankin was not seen the following morning, nor the following night, or any day after that. A full investigation was undertook, but -- to Emily’s surprise and satisfaction -- no trace of Rankin could be found. Due to his secrecy surrounding Emily’s fake dragon eggs, he had told no one where he had gone and had left all his belongings in his abode. Captain Laurence was concerned over the ordeal, as Emily had known he would be. There was, after all, a reason why she had decided to solve the problem of Rankin without his knowledge. 

Rumors of foul play circulated, and tensions on all sides grew; but in the end, Granby could be heard telling Laurence that Rankin must have caught wind of MacArthur's idea of fashion and turned right back around for England. 


End file.
